


If You Could Change My Mind

by Emeli_Thorne



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Some Cursing, aka why did frank lick his lips after kissing karen's cheek, angsty, based on TP 1x5, frank's pov, inspired by that scene by the river, this is my take on that scene and the reason behind the lip-licking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 19:22:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13817787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeli_Thorne/pseuds/Emeli_Thorne
Summary: Kastle oneshot, inspired bythis momentaka why did Frank lick his lips after he had kissed Karen?





	If You Could Change My Mind

Karen is all riled up, his determination to deal with these people in his own way leading her to the wit’s end; Frank can see that clearly on her face, can hear it in the exasperation in her voice.

“I want there to be an after. For you!” she yells in his face and he’d be an idiot if he denied how her words affect him. “Say that these man die, right? You get what you want. They’ll paint them as martyrs, Frank”.

God, he knows she’s right. She’s always right because her mind doesn’t get clouded with hot fury and hate the way his does. But for him, there is no other way. These people are ruthless and the only language they understand is the one Frank is more than fluent in: weapons, spilling blood, one shot, one kill. Pull the trigger and be over with it.

He is restless, shifting from foot to foot, his blood already boiling. He asks her, “What’s the alternative? What should I do?” even though he doesn’t care what she will say. Whatever it is, he’s not going to go with her proposition because she’s too good, too eager to help him that she’d be willing to risk her own safety for him.

When she asks him to rely on her, to let her help him expose these savages he knows he’s read her well. Karen doesn’t want to let him fight this battle alone, but what she doesn’t understand is that he has to. He has to do it alone and in the only way he knows how because if these people get even a whiff of her, how much she means to him...

Frank won’t let anything happen to her.

_Why is she like this, why doesn’t she want to give up on him? Why does she insisting on fighting for him and wanting to change his mind?_

“I can’t go after these men and keep you safe,” he tells her, fear apparent in his voice no matter how much he tries to hide it. The last thing Frank wants to do is scare her, but Karen’s like a damn dog with a bone, always so stubborn and Frank can’t deal with her tenacity now. Any other time and he’d be praising her strength, boldness, and the will to help people, to help someone like him.

But not now, not with this. Savagery is what is needed, and Frank knows he has ample amounts of it.

The last ounce of restraint he has been putting into this conversation is gone when she interrupts his speech with “You don’t have to keep me safe.”

He’s flying off the handle now because, _goddamit, Karen!_ Can’t she understand what he’s trying to say to her?

“My family’s gone ‘cause of what I know. They’re gone!” Frank’s voice is harsh, unwavering, to the point. His chest is tight, oxygen barely making its way into his lungs.

Karen jumps slightly when he cries this truth in her face and Frank hates himself for scaring her like this, but if it is the only way of getting through to her, of making her understand that this is no joke, then so be it. Let her be scared if that is what it takes to keep her safe.

Only, he can’t bear seeing her like this: head bowed, her eyes trained at the ground under her.

He’s such a fucking idiot. Why did he have to drag her into this? She had a nice life before he barged in again and disrupted it.

Then he thinks, no. Her life is not nice. For a second, what she told him, about the echoing loneliness, flashes in his mind and Frank understands that as much as he avoids accepting that he is indeed lonely, empty on the inside, Karen has fully embraced her loneliness if only to be able to cope with her day-to-day life. She’s too bright to be empty and witness so much darkness, to tackle it on her own all the time. Yet, she does it and with such grace.

“Karen, I-”, he starts, trying to make her understand what this means, what it would mean for him to lose her too. Karen turns her head away from him, and fuck, if it doesn’t cut through him like a knife. He can feel his eyes fill with tears at the mere thought of these monsters getting their hands on her.

“Hey,” he calls for her, wanting to have her looking into his eyes as he tells her, confesses to her his secret, “I cannot let that happen to you, you got that?”

Karen’s not looking at him though, but away from him. She sniffs, but Frank’s too focused on getting his point across. “I cannot let that happen.”  _Do you know what I’m saying? Do you understand, Karen?_

“Please.” Frank implores her as his last resort, his voice just slightly louder than a whisper. This is his way of apologising because nothing else he says will make her see things the way he does.

And nothing she says will make him see things her way.

He is who he is, Karen is who Karen is. No point in trying to make each other anything more or less of who they are and what they are made up of.

Karen is dead-still and quiet, has been since he yelled at her and he’s not used to that.

As the final act of his apology, Frank tentatively leans forward into her space. Karen’s ocean-blue eyes are still trained forward, her hands tucked into her coat pockets. Not knowing whether he does it because he needs it or because he thinks this will pacify her, provide her with at least a tiny bit of his feelings for her, he presses his lips against her left cheek.

Her cheek is cold against his lips, painted crimson red by the harsh wind blowing from the river.

The kiss lasts but a second for he doesn’t allow himself to indulge in her softness. The kiss lasts but a second when something liquid and warm makes contact with his lips.

There’s a solitary tear rolling down her cheek, slowly, then his mouth absorbs it.

It tastes salty and sweet, it feels like the loneliness she mentioned moments ago, rooted in her being, infused in her tears.

If Frank were braver, he would tell her about the solitude and hollowness that make up his being since before he met Maria and she managed to give him a semblance of wholeness which disappeared when he opened his eyes in that hospital and was welcomed into the world where there was no Maria, no Lisa, no Frankie.

If Frank were braver, he would tell her that her presence gives him serenity he hasn't experienced in months.

If Frank were braver, he would pull his damn hands out of his damn pockets and reach for her hands, entwine them with his just to feel her warmth and forget how cold he’s been since he was left all alone in this godforsaken world. Maybe he’d even muster enough strength to pull her into his arms and use all he has to shield her from everything and everyone that could and wants to harm her.

He would tell her he is ready to die for his cause since death never scared him, but that since she came into his life, with her quick wit, sharp tongue, sunflower tresses, steadfast to the bone, he is prepared to defy death because he much prefers her angelic embrace.

She knows he would kill for his family, that he longs to have died with them. What Karen doesn’t know is that somewhere along their tumultuous road, she became his family too.

Maria was all fire, the kind that burns you from ground up and leaves you with open wounds and scars only she can heal and ache only she can sooth.

Karen is ice, the unyielding kind. The kind of coldness that makes her up is the one that seeps into your bones gradually, without you realising it. It catches you unaware and before you know it, it is living within your every cell; it is as much a part of you as anything else is. And you know you can’t live without it.

Once upon a time, he welcomed fire and all her wrath.

Now, he struggles to resist the flaming ice and her bitterness.

It is a losing battle.

Maria's hands were gentle and had never been sullied by blood.

He doesn’t know what Karen’s hands feel like but he knows they are marred with gunpowder and sullied with blood – his, hers, someone else’s he doesn't yet know about.

He welcomed Maria’s bloodless purity.

He longs for Karen’s bloody one.

Her words are always scalpel-sharp and precise, cutting through his defences - the rare ones he puts up around her.

Karen knows him in ways he doesn’t know himself.

She is all elegance, her thoughts orderly and eloquent.

He is a straight out mess, his thoughts in constant disarray when it comes to her.

So he can't even begin to explain and put into words what she makes him feel, everything she awoke in him he thought was lost and buried with his dear Maria. This protectiveness, this burning anger that was once only reserved for his Maria and their kids.

Frank can’t say it, but he sure as hell can show it.

The kiss over, Frank pulls back and licks his lips, tasting her tear. All that sweetness, that hot fire and determination – it’s all Karen and it is all so wonderfully gripping his heart, making it stutter in his already aching chest.

Unable to utter a single word, Frank leaves her because that’s the best damn thing he can do: leave her, stay away from her thus protect her from himself, his past, and his demons.

It doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt him, that it doesn’t take every ounce of strength he has to make his feet move, go and not once look back as he finds his way back to Micro’s hideout.

Frank knows it hurts her too, knows because Karen was never able to hide her emotions from him, each and every one of them displayed on her face, in her blues, in the slight quiver of her pink lips, and finally, her tears.

He'd be lying if he said he doesn't feel the softness and coldness of her cheek on his lips long after he comes back to the basement and sets out to prepare for his trip with Micro.

He'd also be lying if he said he doesn’t wonder what those rosy lips would feel pressed against his.

 If he were braver, more innocent, with less blood on his hands and guilt on his conscience.

But he's not.

So he stays away.


End file.
